FROM 'NATIONHOOD' TO REGIONALISM TO THE NORTH WEST PROVINCE: 'BOPHUTHATSWANANESS' AND THE BIRTH OF THE 'NEW' SOUTH AFRICA

Although majority rule has been achieved in South Africa, thefinal years of one ‘independent’ bantustan, namelyBophuthatswana, and their aftermath, illustrate the problemsof creating a unified identity. Ironically, in the death throesof apartheid, a Pandora's box of ethnic and regionalist claimswas opened. Although these claims were tied to the maintenanceof privileges gained by a tiny minority created through apartheidpolicy, Bophuthatswana had also been sustained by an ideologywhich, although at times highly contradictory, was also indicativeof the space given to twenty years of bantustan nation-building.This article provides a reinterpretation of these complex territoriesby showing how, in the 1990s, in the wake of fundamental politicalchanges in South Africa, the Bophuthatswana regime reshapedits nation-building discourse into a distinctive regionalistcoalition based upon socio-economic and ethnic criteria. Moreover,unlike previous approaches to the region, it shows how contestedterritorial claims were integral to this regionalist movement.Whilst the Bophuthatswana regime finally imploded and its regionalistcoalition was absorbed into South Africa's North West Province,the legacy of the bantustans for South Africa is replete withambiguity. In the post-apartheid era of transition to the NorthWest Province, some of these fault lines, termed ‘Bophuthatswananess’,are discussed. The continuing influence of their core of ‘Batswanaarbiters’ raises pertinent questions concerning the obstaclesto inclusive nation-building.     

Electoral reform and the political modernization of England, 1832–1841

SUMMARY

Philip Salmon re-examines the place of the Reform Act of 1832 in English parliamentary history as a supposed turning point which averted revolution. Recent scholarship has shown that already before 1832 English radical traditions favoured popular constitutional reform over republicanism, and that changes to the electoral system were in practice not extensive after 1832. The analysis of pollbooks reveals, however, that the incidence of party-based voting was higher after the reform. The author explains how changes in the electoral laws, including those for local elections in the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835, altered the nature of electioneering. The new, more bureaucratic electoral laws on voter registration and qualification, on the manner of taking the poll, and on permitted election costs, all placed a premium on party organization for both local and national elections. The legal complexities led to the formation of local party associations to tackle them, as especially the registration of party supporters as voters required constant vigilance between elections. The adversarial system of registration was a key element in the rise of party-based voting in the 1830s. Confrontational electoral practices politicized the electorate for local as well as national contests, and so contributed to the advance of more persistent party allegiances at both levels. This constitutional realignment underpinned the growth of a more modern English representative democracy.     

The Road Not Taken and the ‘Bad Faith’ Thesis: Why a Liberal Democrat–Labour Coalition Never Happened in May 2010

This article examines why a Liberal Democrat‐Labour Coalition did not result from inter‐party negotiations after the General Election in May 2010 and whether the coalition which did emerge was based on a marriage of ‘neo‐liberal minds’, as claimed by Andrew Adonis in his <i>5 Days in May</i> (Biteback, 2013). Consideration of the available evidence, however, suggests a more nuanced conclusion. It is expected that the 2010 agreement will be revisited in preparation for a possible hung parliament in 2015.